FILE PHOTO: U.S. Border Patrol officers walk along the perimeter fence near the International Bridge between Mexico and the U.S., where migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. are waiting to be processed, in Del Rio, Texas, U.S., September 20, 2021. REUTERS/Marco Bello
October 13, 2021
(Refiles to fix garbled word in headline)
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday cheered a U.S decision to open their shared border in November after more than a year of pandemic restrictions, but added that the precise date was still being worked out.
“The opening of the northern border has been achieved, we are going to have normality in our northern border,” Lopez Obrador said in his daily morning press conference.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier said U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico would reopen in November for fully vaccinated travelers after being closed to non-essential crossings since March 2020 due to the pandemic.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the border reopening will coincide with a push to reactivate economic activities in the frontier region, where Mexico has made a vast effort to bring vaccination rates in line with the United States.
He said high-level bilateral economic meetings taking place in November will focus on the border region. Other meetings will be held in coming days to work out details of the reopening.
Ebrard said Mexico had been strongly pushing Washington for the border to reopen, including laying out proposals during a visit by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
The United States “have accepted many proposals that we made along the way to achieve this”, Ebrard said, without giving details.
(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; writing by Drazen Jorgic; editing by Frank Jack Daniel)
Source: One America News Network
